A beam corrected estimation of the frequency dependent attenuation of biological tissues from backscattered ultrasound.

A practical and highly accurate method of estimation of the frequency-dependent slope of the acoustic attenuation coefficient, alpha 1, using backscattered ultrasound energy is presented. The influence of the focused ultrasound beam is experimentally measured and a simple method for incorporating the field effects in the estimate of alpha 1 is described. The accuracy of the estimate of alpha 1 in vitro which appears to be of the order of 10 percent, demonstrates the feasibility of in vivo applications of the technique.